Category: Sermons

Sermon preached March 5, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on John 3:1-17. Podcast link below, or check it out on my YouTube channel! Who was Nicodemus? As far as I know, the only evidence of his existence is the Gospel According to John. His name means “victory of the people.” It’s a…

Based on Matthew 5:20-37. Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on February 12, 2023. The Gospel According to Matthew is structured in such a way to evoke comparisons to Moses. Jesus is portrayed as the new Moses. We are currently in the Sermon on the Mount, which echoes the time Moses went up on…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on February 5, 2023. Based on Matthew 5:13-20. Today, we are continuing the Sermon on the Mount. This is arguably the most important part of the Gospel According to Matthew, and sometimes is treated as the “canon within the canon.” Some Christian sects, such as Anabaptists like Mennonites…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, January 8, 2023. Based on Matthew 3:13-17. We often think of baptism as a quintessentially Christian ritual that sets us apart from Jews. In reality, it was a re-imagining of the mikveh. Throughout the Torah, and especially in Leviticus, there are commandments…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on January 1, 2023. Based on Matthew 2. This combines the First Sunday After Christmas Day with Epiphany Sunday. The lectionary is a structured way of marching through the Bible each Sunday. Some preachers, like Bob Morrison, don’t like using the lectionary, in part because it leaves stuff…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on the Second Sunday of Advent. Based on Matthew 3:1-12. Let me start this morning by setting the scene. You may recall that John the Baptist is the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was an old woman and childless, so her pregnancy was a miracle. Zechariah was…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Luke 21:5-19. Right now, as we speak, sixteen nations are considered to be at war. The two that we hear about in the news are Russia and Ukraine, of course. Looking at the list I found, those are the only nations that fall into the pattern…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on All Saints’ Sunday. Based on Luke 20:27-38. To modern ears, this whole notion of a widow marrying her dead husband’s brother is just weird, or perhaps repulsive. Let’s spend a little bit of time trying to understand what’s going on. In that time and place, women were…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on October 16, 2022. Based on Jeremiah 31:27-34. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you…

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on October 2, 2022, World Communion Sunday. Based on 2 Timothy 1:1-18. Before I jump into the lesson for the day, I’d like to give a little background on Second Timothy. A good fraction of the New Testament was allegedly written by Paul. Some letters are uncontested—Romans, First…